The only people left in the Transportal room were Viviane, Dr. Renard, Case Carswell and his armed bodyguard Dillon. Case was impatient. He was very anxious as he was on the cusp of realizing his goal of attaining the technology of teleportation. With it, he could implement his plan to overthrow the UEN and install himself as Supreme Leader of the most powerful nation on the planet. He could also make himself young again using the Fountain of Youth Effect allowing him to live forever. He was so close he could taste it.

“Dillon, my victory is close at hand! I will have my revenge after all these years!”

“Yes, your honor,” was all Dillon could say.

Case addressed Viviane and Dr. Renard from the observation station.

“Leandre Renard! No tricks! I’m warning you!” Case admonished Dr. Renard.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Carswell. You take me for a charlatan, but I am a gentleman of my word.” Dr. Renard reassured Case.

“Well, I don’t trust you! Prove to me you’ll share your secrets! Teleport yourself as your demonstration of goodwill. If you live, you can teach my scientists the rest and Miss Fox will be set free. If you die, then your sentence will be self-fulfilled.”

“You can’t ask him to risk himself like that!” Viviane interrupted.

“Oh, but I can!” claimed the Judge. “If he fails and dies as a result of teleportation, I still have YOU to study for the secrets.” Case Carswell laughed at his brilliance as chess master pushing his nemesis Renard into a checkmate situation. “There is no way I can lose!”

Dr. Renard did not care how happy Case was and told him so. “I’m not afraid! Because I know it will work. I’m sure of it!”

Dr. Renard turned to Viviane and explained the situation with the Transportal.

“Viviane, help me with the setup and configuration of this blasted Transportal. With your help, I’ll be fine. Just follow my lead.”

Together, Dr. Renard and Viviane made the adjustments and did the math needed in order to configure the Order’s crude Transportal for the teleportation of a living person, Dr. Renard himself. After many long minutes of setting up, tweaking and solving math equations, the pair are ready to perform this demonstration. Dr. Renard stopped to remind Viviane the most important detail.

“You must control the Entropy while the transmission is in progress. Don’t let it ever go positive at any point during the teleportation event. You’ll have to hold it steady while I’m in there because they don’t have the AI to do it for you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” answered Viviane.

“It’s up to you now. It has always been about you.”

Case waited for what he felt was a long time, but which in actuality was perhaps only half an hour. “Are we ready yet? I’m waiting!”

Dr. Renard replied for himself and Viviane. “Yes, we are ready to begin the demonstration. Did I mention that your equipment is crude?”

“Be quiet and proceed!” Case did not want to hear about the condition of his equipment any longer.

Dr. Renard entered the Source chamber of the research Transportal and lay down. Case sat up and leaned forward to get a better look. Viviane watched an enormous number of dials and graphs all telling her something about the teleportation event that was about to happen.

“Energizing the Transportal,” announced Viviane.

She pushed up on a lever mounted to the control console. The portable nuclear power source hummed with an alien sound and the green haze aura surrounding it pulsated once per second. The electrical demand by the Transportal caused the lights in the laboratory to dim. Activity lights on the servers inside their cabinets flickered while the whine of cooling fans revved up. Power surged through the heavy coils of cable wrapped around the Source and Target chambers. A soft light emanated from within the Source chamber and filled the entire room with a heavenly glow.

On the touch surface of the control console, a yellow progress bar crept to the right and read:

Transportal energizing 88% complete Prepare for Teleportation in 0:19 seconds

As the countdown continued, the nuclear power source strained to maintain the enormous amount of electricity needed to perform teleportation. In addition to its green aura, it also gave off some heat. Viviane disregarded the heat and kept her eyes focused on the numbers that scrolled past as the last seconds counted down to teleportation.

The yellow progress bar reached 100% and the clock read 0:00 seconds. The indicator turned green.

Commit: Commencing Teleportation Warning: Process is irreversible

The Order’s Transportal, now 100% energized, threw off electrical arcs from the cables that wound around the Source and Target chambers. Inside the Source chamber, Dr. Renard’s shape warped and deformed a little at first, but then it became wavy and distorted soon thereafter. His body phase shifted as it faded in and out and the color of his form washed away in the soft, bright light until only an outline of his body remained. Then, when it appeared as if he had faded away entirely, a burst of crackling sparks filled the Source chamber and the soft light dissipated and went dark. The Source chamber was empty! Dr. Renard’s entire body had been consumed by entangled particles and now existed between dimensions. Case and Dillon held their breath while watching without blinking. They could not be sure if Dr. Renard was still alive or if he was dead.

“Entanglement complete,” announced Viviane. “Beginning transmission.”

She pushed a group of slider controls upward to begin transmission. The screen on the control console showed a schematic of a data stream traveling from a symbol of the Source chamber to the symbol of the Target chamber. The symbol for the Target chamber blinked on the monitor screen. A blue bar crept to the right as transmission occurred. Even though only seconds passed, the blue progress bar crept too slow for Viviane’s comfort. The heat from the nuclear generator started to bother her as she developed beads of sweat on her forehead which she wiped off with her sleeve. Still, Viviane did not take her eyes off the monitors. The high-pitched whine of computer fans coming from the many cabinets which comprised the Order’s parallel processing supercomputer became loud enough to drown out normal speech as they computed all the states of all the particles for the process of decoherence in the Target chamber.

Attention now went to the Target chamber. It glowed as transmission neared completion. In a few seconds, the dim chamber became filled with a small explosion of glittering light which sparkled for a flash and then faded away. Inside the Target chamber, the outline of a body filled with that bright but soft light could be seen. As the outline of the body faded in and out, color returned to the form and although very distorted and wavy, it could be seen that Dr. Renard was being reconstituted.

“BOOM!”

Without warning, one of the nodes of the Order’s supercomputer drew too much current and shorted out causing a small explosion and fire inside one of the cabinets!

All of the electrical monitors on the Transportal’s control console turned red in color! A buzzing warning alarm sounded through the control console. A message in red blinked from the touch surface screen.

Alert: Teleportation Interrupt!

A wave of panic ran through Viviane on seeing all of her control console monitors turning red with alerts. Case and Dillon ducked for cover after seeing and hearing the explosion and fire in one of the supercomputer cabinets.

Oh no! Viviane thought. I’ll lose him if I can’t get decoherence to continue properly!

Viviane worked the small touch surface and powered off the failed supercomputer node and reconfigured the remaining nodes to handle the compute load of decoherence. With fewer supercomputer nodes to handle the remaining compute tasks, the surviving nodes must work even harder. Their activity lights flashed so often, they looked to be solid on. The nuclear power source which emitted an alien hum and glowed green on normal days was overheating and glowed not green, but white! It also gave off much more heat as it tried to cool itself from the electrical demand.

“KABOOM!”

Again, another supercomputer node shorted out and exploded inside its cabinet starting another electrical fire!

Viviane again tried to compensate for another lost node, but the alarms became more frequent and she could not keep up with the amount of warning information scrolling past on the screen. Viviane turned back to Case and Dillon and screamed at them over the din of alarms, cooling fans and the hum from the nuclear generator.

“Get out of here! The Transportal is in a positive feedback loop and will overload!”

Case and Dillon scrambled to the passageway that led to the remaining evacuation pod.

Viviane, unable to stay on top of the failing Transportal, resigned herself to her fate.

I guess this is the end. Elise, Lilou, Leandre, may we all rest in peace. I’m sorry it had to happen this way. Anaelle, Marielle, I’ll have to be your fairy godmother in spirit from now on.

Viviane slumped down onto the control console while alerts in red scrolled past ignored. She wiped the tears from eyes using only her fingers. The thought of never seeing Anaelle and Marielle again sank in.

On the touch surface screen, a status message flashed its warning.

Transportal Overload Imminent 0:12 Seconds to Overload Condition Evacuate personnel immediately

Out of nowhere, Luc leapt over to the Transportal’s control console! He lurked unseen this whole time! He yelled at Viviane over the noise of the alarms and the droning hum of the generator.

“Viviane! We’ve got to get you out of here!”

Viviane jumped up from her seat at the control console. She was surprised to hear Luc’s voice.

“Luc! What are you doing here?”

Luc did not respond. He grabbed Viviane by the elbow and pulled her away from the Transportal. Together, they ran away and ran out the door of the laboratory, made a right turn and moved down a hallway. Once outside, Luc grabbed Viviane’s waist from behind, folded her over and crumpled himself and her into a ball toward the ground. At the same time, he reached behind his back and pulled a hidden rip cord from the back of his uniform. Out deployed the personal personnel bomb shelter which enveloped both Luc and Viviane inside an impenetrable, hard-shelled black sphere.

In the evacuation tunnel where Case and Dillon fled to, there was only the single-person evacuation pod remaining. The noise from the Transportal was deafening as the overload condition neared. Already, Case seated himself into the last evacuation pod. Dillon had to shout to be heard.

“You must go now, your honor! If you survive, the vision of the Order will return!”

“Yes, and then we will have our revenge!”

“Yes! Get revenge enough for the both of us! Farewell!”

Using his fist, Dillon punched through the glass covering the launch button. The glass broke into sharp pieces which cut Dillon’s hand and drew blood. Disregarding his injuries, he punched the red button inside and Case’s evacuation vehicle blew its safety bolts and launched upward into a hole in the ceiling and up through the rock disappearing within seconds.

The countdown clock reached 0:00 seconds and a violent explosion of the Tranportal occurred causing the clock on the control console to fade to white. The Transportal overloaded and high energy beams shot forth and filled the room and spaces of the laboratory with light and radiation. In the passageway where the evacuation pods were kept, a huge, rushing plume of white fire and radiation filled the tunnel and incinerated Dillon.

Outside of the secret compound, the peaceful night was interrupted by a tremendous explosion from the side of the cliff! Debris, smoke, fire and beams of high-energy particles spew out of the side of the cliff in a huge display of red, orange, yellow and white along with a loud rumble and boom. For several seconds, the explosion lit up the night as if it were day.

Floating on Aveline’s yacht, Kylian, Bastian, Aveline and the twins snapped around their heads and looked in the direction of the loud explosion. They watched horrified as the blast lit up the side of the cliff with a hellish light which could be seen reflected in their faces.

Kylian feared the worst as he slammed his fist on the railing and turned away to hide his watery eyes.